News You Can Use: NYCU Special Edition with Phia Part 2 of 6 The PBM Trap

About this episode

This episode discusses the issues surrounding pharmacy benefit managers and how they contribute to high drug costs.

The PBM Trap: How “Savings” Are Costing You a Fortune PBMs (pharmacy benefit managers) were created with good intentions but became broken middlemen incentivized to push higher-cost drugs. Securing a big discount on an expensive drug looks more impressive than low-cost alternatives. Unfortunately, the system encourages over-prescription. 90% of doctors have no idea what the drugs they prescribe will actually cost you, and direct-to-consumer advertising (allowed only in the US and New Zealand) drives patients to demand expensive brand-name drugs they saw on TV. The solution? Incentivize patients (again!). Independent audit teams can proactively offer generic alternatives, and 80% of the time, doctors agree. Patients receive recurring savings directly in their bank accounts. And for companies: Read your contracts, align incentives with employees, and don't accept the status quo. Healthcare may be weird, but we don't have to be passive victims of it. To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask your Smart Device to “….Play Healthcare NOW Radio”. Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn…

People in this episode

Host: Healthcare NOW Radio

Topics covered

• pharmacy benefit managers
• drug pricing
• healthcare savings
• over-prescription
• patient incentives

Keywords

• PBM
• drug costs
• healthcare
• savings
• generic alternatives
• over-prescription
• patient incentives

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: PBM

Places: US, New Zealand

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